A possible God's possible purpose and nature (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Sunday, January 16, 2022, 14:03 (833 days ago) @ David Turell

A lot of our discussions should have been under this heading, and I’m shifting some in order to avoid repetition.

dhw: I have no idea why you have suddenly decided that “humanizing” no longer refers to your use of such terms as “kindly”, or "interested” or “enjoy” or “wanting to have his work admired” or “to have a relationship with us”, though I do understand your burning desire to change the subject.

DAVID: Personality terms have nothing to do with comparisons of purposeful actions to define underlying personality. So you dodge the point.
And later:
DAVID: Back to your weak God not in total control He doesn't want.

So why is a free-for-all “humanizing”, but wanting full control is not? Why is experimenting to create a being like himself “weak” and “humanizing”, but wanting to create a being like himself is not “weak” or “humanizing” if he creates countless beings not like himself? How can we "define personality" without using “personality terms”, as you do?

DAVID: My all-powerful and all-knowing God knows exactly what to do, what he wants and directly does it.

How can you say that your God wants humans and their food and does it “directly" by designing countless life forms that have no connection with humans and their food? […]

DAVID: My position, based what reality contains [...] is as follows: God is all-powerful, all-knowing, sees the future as it will turn out, and is very purposeful in His actions to achieve His desired goals.

You only name one goal: to design humans plus their food. Strangely enough, my all-powerful God is also very purposeful: he wants and gets a free-for-all, or experiments in order to create a being like himself or to learn new things. But he's not all-knowing. (Even you agreed that he liked unpredictability.)

DAVID: In evolution He works stepwise, as the mechanism of photosynthesis demonstrates. That came first and all the complex organisms followed. The stepwise arrangement may or may not cover the other aspects of environment. Stepwise biochemistry is obvious. But Chixculub is His doing or accidental, as there is no clear evidence.

If there were “accidents”, you can hardly avoid the conclusion that your God reacted to them, as opposed to his advance planning and knowledge of all new life forms and econiches (the majority of which were unconnected with humans plus food).

DAVID: The basic chemistry started with many required mechanisms and reactions in the startup bacteria and were added to as complexity of life forms increased.

I agree. The mechanisms for flexibility and for reacting to environmental change must have been there from the beginning. That is a far cry from the theory that every response to every environmental change was either planned in advance or individually dabbled.

DAVID: That God was very concerned about problems. […] The editing systems follow the same thought patterns, which dhw ignores and disparages. There are many trillions of reactions per second in living forms, with a tiny error level, when the editing fails, a miniscule failure rate in the only system God could design to create life.
And:
DAVID: God invented the only system that works.

It is your illogical assumption that an all-powerful and all-knowing God was unable to invent a system without errors he didn’t want and couldn't correct. I do not regard the diseases resulting from the “failure” rate as minuscule.

DAVID: The biochemistry of life works in a required soupy state where molecules are free to react improperly. It cannot be at the required high speed without molecules freedom of reaction.

So you agree that the molecules are free. I propose that an all-powerful God would not design or have to design something he did not want. Therefore I propose that he WANTED the freedom you have described in order to create the unpredictable diversity of life’s bush, and the “improper” reactions are only “improper” to us. The cells themselves are simply designing their own means of survival. Your only objection is that your humanized God is too kindly to want "improper reactions".

DAVID: The origin of life requires highly technical reactions, not possible without guidance. Read James Tour's current article to see that.

You constantly try to divert attention from the flaws in your theory of evolution by emphasizing the design case for the existence of God. I have never questioned the logic of this, and it is one reason why I’m an agnostic and not an atheist. I’ve also explained many times why I'm an agnostic and not a theist.

DAVID: We are here. Adler and I see the role of God very clearly. So should all clear thinking folks.

You have told us that Adler emphasizes the specialness of humans in order to put the case for the existence of God. That does not explain your illogical theory concerning your God’s “role” in evolution, or your purposeful God’s purpose for designing humans, and it tells us nothing about your God’s nature that does not “humanize” him in exactly the same way as my own speculations “humanize” him.Fortunately, however, you have again confirmed your belief that we probably have thought patterns, emotions and logic in common with your God, so at least we should have heard the last cry of "humanization" when I propose a different "humanization" from your own.